this blog post is actually more of a fastball.

There is a constant debate among baseball hitters who deal with the question, “If you could know what pitch was coming, would you want to know?”

this column about curveballs in life and in baseball is cheesy as hell. yessss baseball season! i love baseball, even as cubs fans make me long for the baseball fans in a certain less-cool midwestern city.

opinionator yesterday blogs about two opinions on gender aspects of hillary's campaign. i don't know enough about any of this to form a clear opinion. but i DO love the fact that it's getting more and more difficult to determine what a female candidate should be like. i think that gender is becoming less of an issue [as is race] as the issue goes on, or at least it's becoming more and more difficult to write about it. it's a good sign that these things are becoming less and less of an issue at all.

and here's something else i've been talking about for a long time...

Yet, Paulsen insists, parishes can’t afford not to welcome these Catholics at a significant moment of “settling,” such as marriage, baptism of a child or the decision to put down roots. “People are out there,” he said. “They’re spiritually hungry, but they want a place where they feel nurtured, not just where they’re told they are wrong. If they think they’re going to be yelled at, or put to sleep or just asked for money, they’re not going.”

maybe it's not a coincidence that it's in an article written by my friend greg? [not that any of you actually though i was writing any sort of impartial blog, or that i'm doing any kind of pretending that i'm well-read.] but this is what i'm talking about! i've heard a lot of stories about parishes doing marriage prep well, but also a lot of stories about them doing it unexcusably poorly. it makes me so mad. i mean, everyone's looking for something. if those of us in the business think that we have the connection to something greater that they're looking for, we need to present it in the best possible way. at the very least, we need to be authentic about how our faith calls us to treat other people. otherwise, when people say that this church stuff is all bullshit, we can't really blame them.

and, even though he's a brilliant and insightful writer about serious things, i'm still partial to greg's barbaro responds to fans. it's not even current anymore - like, who's barbaro again? but it still makes me giggle every single time.